A data scientist has begun digging though comments made to the FCC on net neutrality (you can peruse them here), and has so-far found the vast-majority of original comments made are in favor of the agency's 2015 net neutrality rules. According to analysis of the comments by data scientist Jeffrey Fossett, John Oliver's recent segment on net neutrality on his HBO Show "Last Week Tonight" resulted in an absolute tidal wave of public input on the proceeding.
The graphic to the left highlights just how dramatic this "Oliver effect" was.
But as Fossett dug through the resulting data, he found that a whopping 40% of the 1.5 million comments made to the FCC have come from a bot somebody has been using to spam the FCC proceeding with fake comments from fake people claiming to be opposed to net neutrality.
Readers should understand: both consumer groups and ISP-funded think tanks use what I like to refer to as "outrage-o-matic" forms, where users get e-mails urging them to send a form letter to the FCC in support or opposition to the rules. What this bot is doing (using a possibly hacked database to create fake opposition to the rules) is dramatically different. The group or person behind the bot has not yet been identified.
But among the comments filed by real people (not submitting a form letter either in support or opposed to the rules), Fossett found that 97% of comments received support maintaining ISPs as common carriers under Title II -- and retaining net neutrality protections:
quote:
Supposing that the anti-net neutrality spam is all fraudulent, do most filings support or oppose net neutrality? To find out, I took a random sample of 200 comments from the pool of filings (excluding the repeated anti-NN comments) and hand-tagged the comments as “Supports net neutrality”, “Opposes net neutrality” or “Other”. The results show that the remaining comments overwhelming support net neutrality:
That falls well in line with previous polls that have found the rules have broad, bipartisan support among consumers. In large part because dealing with Comcast's
growing cable monopoly, high prices and historically-bad customer service is a shared annoyance that quickly obliterates traditional partisan divisions. And, despite endless ISP claims to the contrary, most people actually think holding companies like Comcast accountable with reasonable consumer protections is a damn good idea. Of course Ajit Pai has made it clear he intends to ignore the public's feedback as he enacts his plan to strip meaningful oversight of large ISPs and replace it with the policy equivalent of
wet tissue paper. That begins in earnest on May 18, when Pai is expected to rush through a 2-1 partisan vote beginning the process of dismantling the rules, something the courts may not support given obvious public opposition to the idea. Starting March 18 you'll be able to add your own comments on the proceeding again
here.
